Pages

Friday, May 08, 2009

Who's Stealing Now, Mr. Media Man?

The BBC news this morning is reporting the scandal of MPs abusing public money with dodgy expenses claims, a story broken by the usually slumberous Daily Telegraph.

Now I'm an old leftist. As I stumbled into adulthood in the 1980s Margaret Thatcher was Queen and the Labour Party still had some principles to shed. I have since despaired of political solutions, but forgive a man whose attitudes were formed in that ideologically polarised time for not being able to understand why Labour Party politicians should claim thousands and thousands from the public purse for gardeners, cleaners, Sky subscriptions and mock-Tudor frontage to their houses. You'd expect such shenanigans from Tories. But representatives of the party that once belonged to the working man?

However, the BBC themselves should probably get off the moral high ground when it comes to reporting scandals about wanton rifling of the public coffers.

The radio show I heard the story on had two presenters, a third person to deliver traffic news, a fourth person to deliver weather forecasts, a fifth person to talk about sport, and a sixth and seventh person to comment on the economy. All of them paid out of the license fee and none of them, I would bet, on minimum wage. And that's one three-hour show on one BBC station, when there are at least seven that I know of and all the tv channels besides.

Is that a good way to spend the money they rob from every house in the country with the threat of the law levied against anybody disinclined to pay?